


Fragments

by Carmine_ink



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memories, Multi-Era, POV Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmine_ink/pseuds/Carmine_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flashes of memory from Remus' life with Sirius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragments

Remus Lupin remembers …

1) a thirteen year old Sirius, bleary-eyed in the lost hours of the night, fumbling shadows in the dark. an unexpected weight on his bed and ice cold feet against his calves. loosening his hold on the blankets, a brief sense of surprise and fear, laying very still as he feels Sirius turn beside him: “not a word to James.” A roar of bursting colour in his dreams.

2) those eyes the colour of rainwater, the stabbing shooting pains in his legs, in his neck, around his wrists, down his sides. the guilt that floods him when he realizes that, yes, one day he will forgive this too. feeling that he can’t afford more friends and besides he is at the mercy of those eyes and that mouth, defiant at the corners and smiling his way in treasured tiny moments. under the cloak and in the halls, dazzling, blinding flashes of teeth, and butterflies.

3) one clear night at the edge of the forest, exhausted but finally, fleetingly human once more, a familiar arm around his shoulders - “thought you weren’t coming,” he had said, eyes to the ground, feet sinking squelching into the springtime mud. being pulled close, pine needles in his hair, a breath at his ear: “wouldn’t miss it for the world.” A mouthful of cigarette smoke and words unsaid.

4) those mad desperate moments in a flat full of boxes, fisting handfuls of black hair, jeans around his ankles and teeth at his neck, with nothing separating him from the feel of Sirius here and now and his for as long as he needs, burning like a furnace and bright as the sun. 

5) crumpled cotton sheets and a stiff silence that descends, quick and deadly. the cheap whisky, the locked doors, the realizing home is a person not a place and every day it slips slightly further away. more boxes, a draft from the window.

6) blood on his hands and in his heart, a moon that lasts 13 years. faceless bodies and grey skies. a different half-person, a different half-life.

7) impossibly, how to hope.

8) fingers tracing the ribs of this starved skinny stray and inhaling the familiar scent of wet dog. fried hamburger meat, muddy pawprints on the carpet and he doesn’t bother cleaning up. Padfoot’s warm fur soft against his chest as he falls asleep, still dressed.

9) loving him fiercely in the dusty echoes of that terrible place, the rage of a caged animal, the desolation of a broken man. coaxing him from numbness with offered hands and mouths, the promises of impossible things. confessions, and perfectly steeped tea. old arguments, old records and new ways of making Sirius laugh. never a missed goodbye.

10) everything, in slow motion. 

a flash of light, a distant scream

Sirius, always, Sirius - beautiful as he laughed, graceful as he fell.

11) that impossible teenage boy with borrowed eyes and messy hair, who is brave and kind and good. friends, young and old, who refuse to surrender before the oncoming storm. a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

12) fighting for a world that will be better than the one he leaves behind.


End file.
